Old Work Friends

For over a year I've been hosting a monthly event at work I call "Women's Wine Wednesday".  It started out with just the women in this picture and has grown into something so much bigger. Sometimes we have 20-30 women show up.  Other times, it's just a few.  But no matter, it's so awesome to have such good friends at work!!

Sky

Kensington Road near the GM Proving Grounds has a huge hill.  When you are at the top, you can see a very, very long way away.  I took this picture one afternoon because the clouds were cool but high enough not to block out the distant view.  Too bad the electric wires get in the way...

Just a couple hours later it looked like this over my house.

And then it got even darker.  You could see the lightening high up in the clouds yet there was still that one little gap of clear sky.

The storm moved across the sky west to east which was odd and passed just north of me.  That little gap of clear sky had the setting sun turning the clouds to the east pink. It was fun to stand outside to watch this one as it rolled by.

The next morning brought a pretty cool sunrise over the Detroit River.  Now that my office is on the north side of the building, I don't get to see many of these.

This sunset at Kensington wasn't all that spectacular but it did turn the eastern sky into quite a beautiful site just a little while later as we walked around the lake.

And then we had this.

The colors were beautiful and the shapes of the clouds just emphasized it all.

As we came back around the lake, you could almost see how the setting sun on the right was reaching the clouds on the left - west to east.  Pretty cool.

Mother & Daughter

I'm not sure where we were going but Madison took this selfie of the two of us.

Since I liked the picture well enough, I cropped her out!

And then we took this cute pic of her snuggling with Henrik.  He is not amused.

Madison's wearing the same dress but this picture was taken a couple weeks later...Henrik is still not amused.

And then one chilly September day we took a sunset hike together.  Ahhhhhh.

Construction Projects

As usual, I forgot to take a "before" picture but suffice to say that my old front deck/steps were terrible. The whole thing was wobbly and so narrow you had to scooch past the screen door to get in the house because of the way it opens. It really was a mess and I had waited two years to replace it along with the front door that had so many gaps around it you could feel even a mild breeze from outside.

The guy I found to do the job was a young retired fireman.  He was intent on making this thing sturdy and he certainly did.

Like all contractors, it took longer than he expected and he ran into many roadblocks along the way.

And I don't know where it went but I don't have the final picture either but let's just say it turned out great and I'm happy with it. Above you can see the old front door.  It hinges on the right so if you are coming up the steps to the right, the old screen door also opened that way.  The new front door also opens the same way but the porch is big enough to actually get around it since it cantilevers out over the grass by a foot.

This is the new front door.  It is not a manufactured home front door.  The manufactured home industry is very messed up.  They make their doors 1.5 inches shorter than EVERY other standard home door on the market.  This means you HAVE to buy a manufactured home door from one of two manufacturers and they only make certain types of doors.  I didn't want that type of door.  This meant that my contractor had to cut an inch and a half out of the totally useless header that the manufacturer had installed over the top of the door to fill in that space.    Because I chose a STANDARD door, I was able to also buy a standard storm door of much better look and quality than what is available from those two manufactured home door places.

I love, love love having the window in the door now!  It adds so much light to my little foyer space which makes a big difference since I don't actually have a light over the door like most houses would have. (The molding wasn't yet up around the door on the inside yet, nor was the door knob installed).

And while my contractor was building a new front deck, I had to stain the big back deck.  After it was power washed, most of the old stain was pretty much gone and I would have been quite happy to leave it as it was but the homeowners association thought differently.  I also hate this reddish brown color but it was cheap and is similar to what most of the other homes have used.  Of course, after two gallons of the stuff, I ran out with a 5'x5' section left to do...grrr!

One of the big reasons I wanted to replace the front door was to get one that didn't allow in so many drafts.  The old screen door had a huge gap at the bottom that let in more than just drafts and meant I could rarely leave the front door open even if the screen was closed.

While it was small, I was pretty disturbed to see a gap under the new storm door.  I spent a good 30 minutes of laying on the floor on both sides of the door to see what kind of "flap" I could install to cover this up.

And then I noticed that little screw.  Amazing what a woman with a screwdriver can do!  Voila!  Gap is closed!  I still need to put a couple little pieces of molding in the corners to close up the other little gap but that's easy-peasy.  Yay!  More projects completed!